Additional Rules
Athletic Feats The rules for a number of Athletics actions are poorly described in the Chronicles of Darkness book. We collect those rules here in one place so players can understand how Celestial Dance works. :Climbing: Strength + Athletics. The character climbs 10 feet (3 meters) on success, or 20 feet on an exceptional success; on a dramatic failure he falls. Characters can climb carefully as an extended action, taking 1 minute/roll; the threshold is 1 success for each 10 feet of distance to climb. :Jumping: Strength + Athletics. The character jumps one foot upward or one yard horizontally for each success rolled. A running start gives an equipment bonus of +1 for each yard available. Characters can roll Wits + Athletics reflexively to measure the distance needed for a successful broad jump. :Lifting: Characters can carry 25 pounds (~10 kg) per Strength dot without being encumbered; each increment of 25 pounds over that limit decreases Speed by 1 and imposes a penalty of -1 to Physical actions. A character can lift twice the weight he can carry as an instant unrolled action. To lift something heavier, the character rolls Strength + Stamina; successes are added to his effective Strength. :Swimming: Dexterity + Athletics, for difficult maneuvers. Characters move at their Speed in feet, not yards, each turn when swimming, if they know how (anyone with Athletics • does.) Going underwater requires holding one’s breath, a reflexive Stamina + Composure roll; each success gives the character 1 turn during combat or 30 seconds elsewhere. After that the character takes the Drowning Tilt. Deprivation A character can survive a number of days equal to his Stamina without water. At that point, and each day thereafter, he takes one point of bashing damage. A character can survive a number of days equal to his Stamina + Resolve without food. At that point, and each day thereafter, he takes one point of bashing damage. These effects stack. Damage from deprivation does not heal until the character has continuous access to the food or water he lacked. Explosives Explosives inflict damage over an area. They are not normally used to attack a single person, but to destroy groups of people or large objects. Thus they have special traits. *'Blast Area:' The diameter of the main explosion. Explosives inflict damage in three bands: ground zero, the primary blast and the secondary blast. Ground zero is the explosive itself and anyone on top of it. The primary blast area is a circle with the listed diameter in yards. The secondary blast area is a circle with twice the listed diameter. *'Damage:' The basic amount of damage done. Everything caught in the explosion takes this amount of automatic damage, of the type appropriate for the band they’re in: aggravated at ground zero, lethal in the primary blast, bashing in the secondary blast. *'Force:' Explosions inflict additional damage based on their Force. Roll Force as a dice pool; add the successes to the damage done to those caught in the blast. All explosions inflict the Deafened Tilt 281 in both ears on characters caught in the blast. An incendiary explosion inflicts the Burning Tilt on characters or objects that take damage. Ballistic armor protects the wearer from explosive damage; it reduces the damage by half its ballistic Armor rating, rounding down. If a character is in cover 92 the cover’s Durability reduces the explosive damage as it does to damage from firearms. A character who is at least partially concealed or has dropped prone reduces the explosive damage by 1. Defense is useless against an explosion, and characters can’t run for cover or drop prone to avoid one unless they can apply Defense against firearms. Fatigue Characters can remain awake for up to 24 hours without too much trouble, but fatigue sets in past that point. At 24 hours, and each 6 hours after that, a character trying to stay awake must roll Stamina + Resolve. If he fails that roll he goes to sleep. If he succeeds, he stays awake, but he takes a cumulative -1 penalty to all his actions, including the roll to stay awake. Physically demanding actions can increase a fatigue penalty by -1 to -3. The longest anyone can go without sleep is a number of days equal to the lower of Stamina or Resolve. Size Changes Characters of unusual size, or who can drastically alter their size, modify several other traits from the human baseline. Modified Attributes are never reduced below 1, but they may exceed the Attribute cap. All changes here apply on top of the recalculated values from derived traits - Health is always current Size + Stamina, and changes when Size changes. In addition, a significantly smaller character can more easily evade larger foes, and place attacks on them. In a combat between characters of different Size, subtract the smaller Size from the larger, then divide the result by 3, rounding down (0-2 = 0, 3-5 = 1, etc.) The smaller character raises his Defense against the larger, and the larger character reduces his Defense against the smaller, by that amount. (E.g. a Size 5 character gains +1 Defense against a Size 8 character, while the Size 8 character takes -1 to Defense.)